Now he saw her face, low in the cot. It was turned to him, and Anna Erivan slept. He moved slightly and the hand patted him again. Romney then lay very still, reflecting upon the miracle of her mothering instinct. Without awakening she had felt his sudden stress. It was like a babe’s cry, and her hand had brought it peace. The presence of her soothed him again. She was resting so sweetly that he could not arouse her now. Contemplating the magic of it all in the thin dawn light, he fell asleep again.
... Some one had come with a great message—the perfect word for him. The lips moved close to his with the story—touched his with a kind of imperishable wonder. He opened his eyes to the full sunlight, and Anna Erivan’s face was close to his.
She was dressed and kneeling beside him. His arms went out to her.
"It is done," he answered, yet even as he spoke he felt that he would have to suffer for that.
"You will take me with you—on your camel—into the desert!"
Again in his consciousness came the sense that what he promised was a failure for which he would have to pay.
She stared into the west. "No one goes that way from Nadiram," she said. "I have been here a year, yet Wampli is but a name to me. Even you, coming from Peking, know that desert bands watch the ways around Wampli. We shall have no escort—"
"We shall pay the tariff demanded. I have credentials that worked before."
"The little parchment of Rajananda shall help us!" she exclaimed.
"Also we have Bamban, a camel-tender, good compasses."
"You think there is no danger of getting lost?" she asked, and he did not search in vain for her smile.
"I have been afraid to leave you here," he said. "There is danger, but it is here—it is everywhere, in the desert and out—if they want to bring us danger—"
"I do not feel that we could be lost _together_. Are you afraid? Would you rather stay?"
She laughed and leaned toward him. "Those who have met our kind of fears, are not afraid of mere men and desert distances.... It will be—it will be almost too great a thing—to leave Nadiram and all this—and go out into the desert with you—"
"Yes—I would go without food or drink. I would go with you—for you are all that faith means.... Better and better I understand. I do not think we are to die soon—but if that is so—it will be together—a rapture in that." ....